MrClean Posted May 4, 2007 Posted May 4, 2007 Hello, I have several DVDs that are in dual-layer PAL format that I can only watch on my computer or on a portable DVD player that I can hook-up to my TV. I would like to make back-ups of these discs for two reasons 1) I have 3 kids who have destroyed previous disks, and 2) I would like to convert the DVDs to NTSC format so I can watch them on my higher-end equipment instead of just the two choices. If someone has done this before I would appreciate any advice or help you were willing to offer. Would someone mind sending me a How-To guide or Instructions? I have a seperate post regarding the proper way to burn backups of a dual-layer DVD onto another dual-layer DVD. Thanks for your time! Mike - aka MrClean.
mmalves Posted May 4, 2007 Posted May 4, 2007 I haven't done it myself, but there are guides for doing that at VideoHelp.com. You might lose some quality though. Another option would be to buy a DVD player that always outputs a NTSC signal, no matter if the DVD disc is PAL or NTSC. I have a Phillips DVP642K/78 (old) that does it and always outputs 480p via component cable.
MrClean Posted May 4, 2007 Author Posted May 4, 2007 Thanks again mmalves - I'll check out that site.
Shamus_McFartfinger Posted May 4, 2007 Posted May 4, 2007 Get a another player instead. It's a hell of alot easier.
blutach Posted May 4, 2007 Posted May 4, 2007 I woulda thought high end equipment played both framerates. But who knows what goes on in an insulated market such as the US? They mustn't think other (better) formats exist. Framerate conversions aren't all that hard. The absolute easiest (but easily the most expensive) software to use is Procoder 2. It never fails and never gets the audio outa sync (which happens a LOT in framerate conversions). Regards
MrClean Posted May 4, 2007 Author Posted May 4, 2007 I woulda thought high end equipment played both framerates. But who knows what goes on in an insulated market such as the US? They mustn't think other (better) formats exist. Framerate conversions aren't all that hard. The absolute easiest (but easily the most expensive) software to use is Procoder 2. It never fails and never gets the audio outa sync (which happens a LOT in framerate conversions). Regards Thanks blutach. Actually, I think the whole DVD market is backward with its Regions and PAL vs. NTSC. There are a ton on films I wopuld love to buy and watch that are in PAL format and it just makes it a little tougher, but I digress... I'm having a hard time finding 'Procoder 2'. Does anyone have a link?
mmalves Posted May 4, 2007 Posted May 4, 2007 I'm having a hard time finding 'Procoder 2'. Does anyone have a link? Canopus Procoder 3 features. It isn't freeware, though.
MrClean Posted May 4, 2007 Author Posted May 4, 2007 Thanks mmalves! I saw Precoder 3, but was curious if the older version was still available. I am goinf to be trying one of the suggestions from the site you gave me last night too - thanks again!
blikkies Posted May 6, 2007 Posted May 6, 2007 Hello, I have several DVDs that are in dual-layer PAL format that I can only watch on my computer or on a portable DVD player that I can hook-up to my TV. I would like to make back-ups of these discs for two reasons 1) I have 3 kids who have destroyed previous disks, and 2) I would like to convert the DVDs to NTSC format so I can watch them on my higher-end equipment instead of just the two choices. If someone has done this before I would appreciate any advice or help you were willing to offer. Would someone mind sending me a How-To guide or Instructions? I have a seperate post regarding the proper way to burn backups of a dual-layer DVD onto another dual-layer DVD. Thanks for your time! Mike - aka MrClean. Can try using Nero to make and image from files and encode to the format you like. This of course assumes they are not encrypted discs. If they are copy protected then you in the wrong forum and cannot be assisted here
blikkies Posted May 9, 2007 Posted May 9, 2007 I woulda thought high end equipment played both framerates. But who knows what goes on in an insulated market such as the US? They mustn't think other (better) formats exist. Framerate conversions aren't all that hard. The absolute easiest (but easily the most expensive) software to use is Procoder 2. It never fails and never gets the audio outa sync (which happens a LOT in framerate conversions). Regards Thanks blutach. Actually, I think the whole DVD market is backward with its Regions and PAL vs. NTSC. There are a ton on films I wopuld love to buy and watch that are in PAL format and it just makes it a little tougher, but I digress... I'm having a hard time finding 'Procoder 2'. Does anyone have a link? I believe the whole world out there except USA have DVD players that play multiple framerates. Its only USA it seems that have DVD players that can only play NTSC.
Pain_Man Posted May 10, 2007 Posted May 10, 2007 I ordered my father a PAL disc from overseas that did not have CSS or any other so-called "copy protection" bs, so there was nothing in US law preventing my making a copy of it for him to watch on his HDTV (my Old Man, God bless him, still can't program the VCR). Thus, I too had the same problem of converting PAL --> NTSC. I found a program called Blaze Media Pro. It does many, many other video and audio related tasks (ripping CDs, converting video formats from one to the other, etc). Most importantly, though, it converts discs easily from one "standard" to another. (Why there isn't just one is beyond me; falls under the same category as, "why is there just one telephone number format?") This is their URL: http://www.blazemp.com/blaze_media_pro.asp It's $50 American, but has a 21 day trial which is plenty of time to burn a few discs. I was able to convert a 2 hour dual-layer DVD from PAL with ease. It preserved the layer break of the original, pressed disc and I was able to burn it to a +R DL using Nero or CopytoDVD (can remember which) with no problems. One draw-back: it took 19 hours to do one disc. (Since each frame must be changed, one can see how much work's involved.) I was (then) using a P4HT 2.8G w/1.5GB RAM. I now how have a Core Duo 2 w/4GB RAM and an X1950XTX Crossfire video adapter system with 1GB of VRAM. So I imagine on my new rig, it would be significantly faster. (I have one disc that needs to be converted, but I haven't got around to doing it yet.) Hello, I have several DVDs that are in dual-layer PAL format that I can only watch on my computer or on a portable DVD player that I can hook-up to my TV. I would like to make back-ups of these discs for two reasons 1) I have 3 kids who have destroyed previous disks, and 2) I would like to convert the DVDs to NTSC format so I can watch them on my higher-end equipment instead of just the two choices. If someone has done this before I would appreciate any advice or help you were willing to offer. Would someone mind sending me a How-To guide or Instructions? I have a seperate post regarding the proper way to burn backups of a dual-layer DVD onto another dual-layer DVD. Thanks for your time! Mike - aka MrClean.
Pain_Man Posted May 10, 2007 Posted May 10, 2007 (edited) It's basic economics. Supply and demand. There's no call for PAL discs. Therefore no one sells them. If there was a sudden jump in demand, it would be provided for. When I was an exchange student in France I had to have a 220 adapter (we use 120). Therefore I had to adapt. I don't recall anyone berating the French for this trivial difference. And the US is the largest market on Earth and in history. There is absolutely NOTHING "insulated" about it. We set the standards, we set the style, we set the pace. What's "insulated" is your puerile loathing of all things American. I can't decide whether to laugh at or pity you. Like the teenyboppers said in my ancient youth: Get a life. (And it ain't the years, babe, it's the mileage.) I woulda thought high end equipment played both framerates. But who knows what goes on in an insulated market such as the US? They mustn't think other (better) formats exist. Framerate conversions aren't all that hard. The absolute easiest (but easily the most expensive) software to use is Procoder 2. It never fails and never gets the audio outa sync (which happens a LOT in framerate conversions). Regards Edited May 10, 2007 by Pain_Man
MrClean Posted May 10, 2007 Author Posted May 10, 2007 I ordered my father a PAL disc from overseas that did not have CSS or any other so-called "copy protection" bs, so there was nothing in US law preventing my making a copy of it for him to watch on his HDTV (my Old Man, God bless him, still can't program the VCR). Thus, I too had the same problem of converting PAL --> NTSC. I found a program called Blaze Media Pro. It does many, many other video and audio related tasks (ripping CDs, converting video formats from one to the other, etc). Most importantly, though, it converts discs easily from one "standard" to another. (Why there isn't just one is beyond me; falls under the same category as, "why is there just one telephone number format?") This is their URL: http://www.blazemp.com/blaze_media_pro.asp It's $50 American, but has a 21 day trial which is plenty of time to burn a few discs. I was able to convert a 2 hour dual-layer DVD from PAL with ease. It preserved the layer break of the original, pressed disc and I was able to burn it to a +R DL using Nero or CopytoDVD (can remember which) with no problems. One draw-back: it took 19 hours to do one disc. (Since each frame must be changed, one can see how much work's involved.) I was (then) using a P4HT 2.8G w/1.5GB RAM. I now how have a Core Duo 2 w/4GB RAM and an X1950XTX Crossfire video adapter system with 1GB of VRAM. So I imagine on my new rig, it would be significantly faster. (I have one disc that needs to be converted, but I haven't got around to doing it yet.) Hi Pain_Man, I'm glad someone else knows what I mean with the whole conversion thing. Thanks for the info on Blaze Media Pro. I'll have to check it out. I have a 3.4GHz Machine now with 1GB of RAM, so it may take a while. Does Blaze come with instructions? Thanks again. I'll let you know how it goes.
MrClean Posted May 10, 2007 Author Posted May 10, 2007 I haven't done it myself, but there are guides for doing that at VideoHelp.com. You might lose some quality though. I found a great tutorial at videohelp called 'Converting a PAL DVD to NTSC DVD using CCE' Thanks mmalves!
Pain_Man Posted May 10, 2007 Posted May 10, 2007 (edited) It had a pretty good help file. I used v. 7.0; they are now at 7.1 so who knows what has changed. Already having multiple programs that do what BlazeMP does, I didn't reinstall it when I got my new rig at the end of last year. And since I bought a brilliant 22in 16X10 Samsung LCD monitor (225BW), I watched the other disc using WinDVD 8 (which, as you know, converts PAL discs automatically). So I haven't felt the need to convert the other disc (but I probably will). But, if memory serves, it was a fairly easy process; exceptin' the annoyance at having to wait and wait and wait and wait... Does your machine have dual cores? I've found it makes a HUGE difference. My P4HT was a 2.8 but my 2.67 Core Duo 2 blows doors. It's so much faster that the P4HT, it's hard to believe. (And, my God, the way video games look and play!! The action's so fast, the games are actually more difficult because the AI--if that's the phrase--moves faster.) Hi Pain_Man, I'm glad someone else knows what I mean with the whole conversion thing. Thanks for the info on Blaze Media Pro. I'll have to check it out. I have a 3.4GHz Machine now with 1GB of RAM, so it may take a while. Does Blaze come with instructions? Thanks again. I'll let you know how it goes. Edited May 10, 2007 by Pain_Man
blutach Posted May 15, 2007 Posted May 15, 2007 It's basic economics. Supply and demand. There's no call for PAL discs. Therefore no one sells them. If there was a sudden jump in demand, it would be provided for. When I was an exchange student in France I had to have a 220 adapter (we use 120). Therefore I had to adapt. I don't recall anyone berating the French for this trivial difference. And the US is the largest market on Earth and in history. There is absolutely NOTHING "insulated" about it. We set the standards, we set the style, we set the pace. What's "insulated" is your puerile loathing of all things American. I can't decide whether to laugh at or pity you. Like the teenyboppers said in my ancient youth: Get a life. (And it ain't the years, babe, it's the mileage.) I woulda thought high end equipment played both framerates. But who knows what goes on in an insulated market such as the US? They mustn't think other (better) formats exist. Framerate conversions aren't all that hard. The absolute easiest (but easily the most expensive) software to use is Procoder 2. It never fails and never gets the audio outa sync (which happens a LOT in framerate conversions). Regards Scott, you are one dumb fuck. Regards
lfcrule1972 Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 In the end it seems that our US friends are the ones missing out as all of my DVD players play both formats without any issues........... It can't be that hard or expensive to implement either as some of the DVD players you buy now are dirt cheap.
lfcrule1972 Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 Shit - forgot to ask, Blutach have you used Procorder for a while then ? Might check that out as I have a friend who can't play NTSC format DVDs and I have a couple he wants to borrow.... Mind you if he is too tight to buy a multi format DVD player I can't see him coughing up for this program either Thanks
dontasciime Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 I posted a link in here to a dvd player in states that is multiregion / multi format Ntsc/Pal was very cheap as well. I would never buy tv or dvd that did not do both formats or rather the 2 variants of ntsc that i know of and pal and maybe the other specs to pal
spinningwheel Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 It's basic economics. Supply and demand. There's no call for PAL discs. Therefore no one sells them. If there was a sudden jump in demand, it would be provided for. When I was an exchange student in France I had to have a 220 adapter (we use 120). Therefore I had to adapt. I don't recall anyone berating the French for this trivial difference. And the US is the largest market on Earth and in history. There is absolutely NOTHING "insulated" about it. We set the standards, we set the style, we set the pace. What's "insulated" is your puerile loathing of all things American. I can't decide whether to laugh at or pity you. Like the teenyboppers said in my ancient youth: Get a life. (And it ain't the years, babe, it's the mileage.) I woulda thought high end equipment played both framerates. But who knows what goes on in an insulated market such as the US? They mustn't think other (better) formats exist. Framerate conversions aren't all that hard. The absolute easiest (but easily the most expensive) software to use is Procoder 2. It never fails and never gets the audio outa sync (which happens a LOT in framerate conversions). Regards Scott, you are one dumb fuck. Regards
blutach Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 @LFC Yes, I use Procoder a lot for all sorts of things. Although it is mighty expensive, it does conversions (both ways) without fail. It can also transcode audio at the same time (eg LPCM to AC3 5.1) and you can dial up your desired bitrate, whether you wanna use 1 or 2 pass, variable or constant BR encoding etc. It is very versatile as it converts just about anything to anything else. Regards
lfcrule1972 Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 Thanks blu - sounds good, will take a look at the links and also the price !
Imperialism Rocks Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 I believe the whole world out there except USA have DVD players that play multiple framerates. Its only USA it seems that have DVD players that can only play NTSC. Nope. The XBOX, a product of the USA, plays PAL DVDs and outputs NTSC XBOX + Xecuter + Xbox Media Center
Imperialism Rocks Posted May 16, 2007 Posted May 16, 2007 When I was an exchange student in France I had to have a 220 adapter (we use 120). 120 is a retarded standard that needs to be changed. 120 creates ENORMOUS power transmission loss. Would you like a lower electric bill? 240 is the way to go. You can thank Edison for his BS scare tactic campaign against AC
spinningwheel Posted May 18, 2007 Posted May 18, 2007 When I was an exchange student in France I had to have a 220 adapter (we use 120). 120 is a retarded standard that needs to be changed. 120 creates ENORMOUS power transmission loss. Would you like a lower electric bill? 240 is the way to go. You can thank Edison for his BS scare tactic campaign against AC While a good thought, it won't happen. The cost of transformers to step-down 240V to 120V would bankrupt most people as 120V has been the standard for so many years now...and don't forget that the device manufacturers have a permanent seat on every NEC panel.
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